May, 2001

The general election has been called for 9th June... so foot & mouth disease is dying out, if you watch the news the impression is it's pretty much over and done with... but Yorkshire is being hit as we write and the farming community is very suspicious of how this has just been swept off the media and political table.

However, it would seem that nature will continue to take her course, inspite of political or any other agenda. Albert, the peacock had taken to sleeping on the wall of the back yard with his tail hanging down outside - not the smartest idea we thought. He disappeared one morning. Our neighbour had seen the fox dragging something way too big for it across fields at the back of the yard and after a little searching we discovered a pile of very beautiful feathers telling the tale of Albert's demise. Victoria seems a little lost without him but has found some consolation in taunting our house cat Thomas, but sitting on the back door step. Thomas is very cautious of anything bigger than a fly so currently chooses his moments to exit very carefully! We have called Paul at the CSWBC and he is looking out for a new partner for her.

This month, the sun came out and as I write in the last week of May, the clay boggy marsh that has been our farm for the last few months is turning green. The land is finally drying out and Mark has been out there with tractor, harrow and roller getting stuck in the mud - thank goodness our neighbours have a good 4wd one and have been able to drag us out! We're wondering how and when to make silage. We want hay for the horses during the winter so how much and where's it going to come from and the pro's and con's of fertilisers are conversations of the month.

Whilst we were both out one afternoon, the fox visited again. This time Mark returned to find a dead hen in the yard and our white cockerel, Earl, decapitated in the ditch. Another hen was missing. Reeling from the "unfairness" of this "attack" we started planning how to protect "our hens" from further losses. Of course, it wasn't our hens we were protecting, it was us and all we had attached to the hens. In truth, nature was in balance. This fox presumably has cubs which need feeding and what do foxes eat? Whatever our views about foxes, killing and all that, the nature of life is that every living thing needs to take in food in a form it can assimilate to continue living, this fox was doing just that, and will continue to do so. Just as we humans will continue to eat plants and animals during our lives. We marvelled at the fact that our egg production didn't seem to be affected by this incident. Could it be that the hens which were not laying were the ones the fox had taken? Whatever the answer, we decided once again, to challenge ourselves to let go of our attachments to the way we thought life "should" be and trust that the hens and fox would work it out between them. So our one cockerel, Louis, and eight hens still roam around the farm sorting things out with great industry and zest for life.

Our daughter's school was having a market at the end of May and Lorraine wanted to do a stall to support the school, visit Emily and promote the farm. Photo's were scanned in to the computer - some of which you can see dotted around on this web site - pieces written and a brochure put together. Lorraine had been busy since February turning the conservatory into a passable greenhouse and she had beautiful hanging baskets, window boxes and herbs to sell. She made some bread and carrot cakes in flower pots, with the help of a visiting friend (thanks Judy) and took them all along with brochures for the farm and beef boxes which would hopefully be ready next month. The event was very successful in that we covered out costs, had a lovely day out and met lots of people who were very interested in what we are doing.

Of course, along with the sun came lots of things growing, including the weeds and we quickly discovered a large amount of Hemlock in the field margins on the farm. Hemlock is an interesting herb. It looks like cow parsley but is actually highly toxic. If eaten by cows their back legs become paralysed and it was used in ancient times being given to people preparing for crucifixion to numb out pain. Anyway, especially as there are no planned crucifixions here and we have and intend to keep cows, hemlock isn't a great thing to have around but how to get ride of it. Again we face the dilemma of chemical spraying or... what? We donned our gloves on several very warm days and just set to pulling it up, one plant at a time. We stood back one day and admired our hemlock-free margin... then on a foray around the farm the next day found several other large clumps of it including some in a yet-to-be-reclaimed pond which is 10 foot high and in full bloom. Well, I guess some you win and some you loose! We are left wondering, would goats and/or sheep graze hemlock without ill effect?

And you may remember last month we were wondering what to do with our cows. Well, they are coming along very nicely (apparently) and we have some orders from friends wanting to buy beef for their freezers. As time goes by, we are still in a dilemma about how this will work, which ones to send first, how we will feel about it when they go. We also researching if there is a way to have them slaughtered on the farm, to avoid that extra stress to these cows.